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InTheGarageMedia.com

BY “Rotten” Rodney BaumanPhotography BY THE AUTHOR

Signal Surprise typography

New Olds Park Lamps for Early Task Force Trucks

S

ometimes it’s largely the little things that’ll separate a custom creation from a restrained restoration. As we might’ve mentioned last time, our ongoing ’55 Second Series Chevrolet project won’t be heavily customized. There’ll be a few custom touches here and there, however, which we’re hoping might take Task Force authorities by surprise. If we can just trigger some head scratching, we’ll consider that part of our mission accomplished.

To catch us up, we’re still in the bodyworking phases of the build. With the cab in first-round primer we’re focused on a mix of original-equipment and reproduction panels with front fenders receiving attention at this time. While we’re working on fenders anyway, let’s go on and add another little custom touch.

Apart from two tiny glass lenses and their two related gaskets, we’ve already got the makings for smoother-appearing, less-recognizable park lamp assemblies. If you’ve put in your time scrounging through older wrecking yards you might identify these as ’54-55 Oldsmobile. If by chance you know them also as ’58 Chevrolet station wagon or sedan delivery, you’re good.

Being about the same outside diameter as the stock-type ’55-57 Chevrolet truck park lamps, our pieced-together Oldsmobile assemblies should swap in fairly easily. Still, this might work best on a mocked-up truck.

Here our project is in pieces. It’s not a good time to bolt the front group back together, but we can fashion a fender fixture for what we’ll need to do. With fenders aligned, at least with one another, this’ll begin as a matter of enlarging two holes.

Not to change it too much, but let’s head this off before we commence with the step-by-step portion of our story: A short while or two back, a reader fired off a newfangled electronic letter. Toward the end of the letter he pointed out that yours truly had “dropped” the name of one particular sponsor three times in one tech story. Now I’m here to testify, that’s not true. It was four times!

Way out here in Northwestern Montana we’re not exactly the first to receive much of anything. So, when Harbor Freight came to nearby Kalispell, it was just what our car crowd was clamoring for. On that note, especially for my newest potential pen pal who’s literally counting on me, I’ll be using Harbor Freight (this shop’s house brand) items darn-near exclusively throughout the following procedure. Our subject truck’s new left fender, however, is from Brothers Trucks.

close up of the stock bullet-shaped park lamps on a blue classic truck
1. There’s nothing really wrong with the stock bullet-shaped park lamps. We know that Brothers stocks new ones but this time that might be too easy.
close view of the reverse lamps on a ’55 Olds
2. For now we’ll borrow bits and pieces from our own ’55 Olds. We’re thinking its reverse lamps will flow nicely with the eyebrows of early Task Force fenders.
mechanic rigs a temporary fender fixture
3. To this point we haven’t shared our plan with the project truck’s owner. Partly for a visual presentation of sorts, we’re rigging a temporary fender fixture.
the photo used for the pitch
4. Here’s the photo we used for the pitch—and it worked! We’ve got the green light, but we’re still lacking lenses to complete our assemblies.
mechanic begins search for replacement parts
5. “Bauman’s to the circuit, ’55 Olds a pair of reverse lamp lenses!” Well, that’s how we used to locate parts, anyway. Today it’s kind of like I’m talking to myself.
mechanic holds a tiny lens and the related gasket
6. Of course we’ve known the source for reproduction Olds parts. For two tiny lenses and related gaskets we’ve stepped up, but we’re mostly just glad we could get them.
mechanic removes an area of EDP coating from the right fender
7. To guide a hole saw with a 1/4-inch pilot bit we’ll be tack-welding something to the backside. First, for the new Brothers fender we’ll remove this bit of EDP coating.
mechanic manually removes coating from a less accessible area
8. A 3-inch Scotch-Brite Roloc disc on a house-brand angle die grinder has stripped this spot in seconds. For the less-accessible area we’re removing the coating in a manual manner.
mechanic holds left over slugs to the fender for comparison in size
9. These aren’t fender washers. They’re leftover slugs, perhaps from the last time we used a hole saw. For proper guidance their existing holes are a tight 1/4 inch.
a slug is clamped in postion from the top and bottom
10. Once we’re satisfied that we’ve got them centered, the guide slugs are firmly clamped into position.
a mechanic, in full coverage clothing and wearing a mask, welds the slug to the fender
11. This is a job for the designated welder, Mrs. Rotten. “Oh honey, just give me three tack-zaps per hole.”
mechanic chooses the proper hole saw size piece
12. At times like these it’s good to have a fairly new, sharp set of house-brand hole saws. For this it looks as though the 2 1/2 incher will be just about right.
mechanic uses a hole saw to trim out the slug on the fender
13. All chucked-up in a compatible pneumatic drill, the hole saw takes a spin. Since our guide slugs have pre-drilled 1/4-inch holes, we can’t hardly go wrong here.
mechanic observes the newly cut slug and hole
14. One more hole to cut. This guide slug has done its job, but it does look as though we’ll have some sharp edges.
using a house-brand file set, mechanic smooths and neatens the edges of the newly cut hole
15. There’s an actual de-burring tool here, but lately I tend to favor this house-brand file set. With a half-round bastard let’s de-burr (bastardize) our sharp edges.
for proper clocking the mechanic secures the new Olds park lamp buckets in line with the fender fronts’ vertical seams
16. Four more holes to drill. For proper clocking we’ll need to secure our new Olds park lamp buckets in line with our fender fronts’ vertical seams.
mechanic uses welding magnets to assist with proper clocking
17. In this instance, familiar-looking house-brand welding magnets just might do the job on their own.
mechanic drills a mounting hole into the fender
18. Even so, we’ve gone on to waste some masking tape. With lamp buckets secured, let’s now drill our mounting holes—about 1/8 inch at a time.
new Olds park/signal lamp assemblies is loosely installed for a test view
19. As we loosely snug our new Olds park/signal lamp assemblies down for a look, we’re pleased. To make these dual-purpose we’ll convert for dual-filament 1157 bulbs.
close view of the right side fender with only the park lamp present and operating
20. The bulb conversion won’t be so technical, so let’s move toward the point. In the end we believe we’ve gained a smoother visual flow between head lamps and park lamps.
SOURCES
Brothers Trucks
(800) 977-2767
brotherstrucks.com
Harbor Freight Tools
(800) 423-2567
harborfreight.com
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